A new WHO paper has been published describing the development of a social listening public health taxonomy for COVID-19. A social listening taxonomy can be thought of like a tree. The trunk is the general topic of interest, the branches are more specific categories relevant to that topic, and the twigs of those branches are the sub-categories that have an even narrower focus. This model can be used to navigate the information overload that can occur during an infodemic.
Filtering billions of publicly shared messages through this kind of taxonomy makes narrative analysis more efficient, separating signal from noise, so experts can better hear and respond to changing community concerns. This approach gives decision-makers relevant information quickly. This in turn enables a rapid response, when time is of the essence during a health emergency.
Published in the new journal JMIR Infodemiology, this paper describes how the method was developed and applied to identify relevant points of confusion, harmful narratives, and key questions from public online conversations about COVID-19, and outlines how the approach can be easily adapted to other health topics. Rather than only reacting to viral rumours, this approach helps experts more quickly spot information voids so they can be addressed more proactively before such vacuums become filled with rumours.
This taxonomy has been used to inform the weekly EPI-WIN global analysis reports since March 2020, including more than 1.4 billion public posts about COVID-19 and 70 million questions. The taxonomy has also been has been adapted, translated, and applied in a number of country-level studies in Mali, the Philippines, and Malaysia, as well as sub-nationally in Canada. The WHO EARS platform builds on this taxonomy to move from a weekly analysis to daily automated classification of publicly shared questions and concerns for 25 pilot countries.
Tim Nguyen, Head of Unit, High Impact Events Preparedness at WHO, was interviewed by Dr Jennifer Joe, Chief Ambassador at JMIR Publications, about the paper. Mr Nguyen talked through the development of the pioneering taxonomy and how it is being applied in a real-world context. He describes how the taxonomy has been useful in helping to understand how narratives move globally as countries experience different phases of the pandemic response at different times. You can watch the interview here.